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Letter: How is Jankovsky a ‘moderating influence?’

William Conder
Glenwood Springs

I read with interest your Oct. 20 editorial in which you endorse Tom Jankovsky in the county commissioner election. You mention the differences between Mr. Jankovsky and his opponent in the election, Michael Sullivan, regarding the oil and gas industry. You say that Mr. Sullivan has some good ideas and that “Sullivan is right that commissioners don’t pay much heed to the substantial voices in the county seeking more gas industry oversight.” You agree with Mr. Sullivan’s ideas on a clean and healthy environment. But then you shape-shift and say that Mr. Jankovsky “is a moderating influence” on the commission and “does a fair amount to promote health …”

A paragraph or two later you admit that Mr. Jankovsky supports oil and gas development and that “no reasonable or realistic person, including Sullivan, believes gas production can stop in the region in our lifetimes.” And that is certainly true if we believe these opinion pieces, written in a local paper that seems to have abandoned the concerns of local people, and in a county, such as Garfield, in which the board is stacked with officials of the same political persuasion and ideas about industrial development. How would we recognize Mr. Jankovsky’s “moderating influence?” And are we simply to accept what you seem to be describing as helplessness to control the destructive industrialization (euphemistically called “development”) of our neck of the Western Slope woods? “This is it. Nothin’ we can do. Might as well give up and vote for Jankovsky.”

The recent embodiment of the Post Independent has missed several important events over the last few months in the continuing story of the fossil fuel industry, local oil and gas “development,” fracking and the controversies this industry has aroused. It’s conspicuous that critical investigative reporting on the “elephant in the room” by the Post Independent is missing. It’s not unusual for a newspaper to change its politics, but in this case it seems the PI also has relinquished its responsibility to its local readership in favor of “the bubble,” which, if we’re paying attention, could burst sooner than later.



I say vote for Michael Sullivan.


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